


Fight me

by ilse_writes



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Human Upgraded Connor | RK900, M/M, Mentions of Injuries, Nurse Nines, Sick Fic, Sort Of, hospital fic, minor character injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:33:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21900244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilse_writes/pseuds/ilse_writes
Summary: The new patient in room 209 is really testing Nines' patience. The man is constantly looking for a fight. He is cute when he is sleeping, though...
Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Comments: 4
Kudos: 153





	Fight me

**Author's Note:**

> Due to work related stress and writer's block, I haven't been writing for weeks. Then I came across a post on Pinterest and I immediately saw Reed and Nines in that situation. So that's what this is. Me coming out of a rough spot and writing something sweet.  
> After this I hope to return to my other writing projects (Top Dog, for instance).

#  Fight me

The lights of the hospital are harsh on his eyes when Nines steps inside. He shuts the door on the cold and dark outside, the sun not yet ready to rise above the horizon for another hour or two. His parka is wet from the snow and he hangs it on a hook instead of stuffing it inside his locker like usual. He changes the watch on his wrist for the pocket watch that can hang from his chest pocket; that time he forgot to take off his watch from his wrist and he had to physically reach inside someone’s gaping abdomen was a day to remember. Leather boots get changed for the sensible - easy to rinse, great footbed - shoes he wears inside the hospital and after that he is ready to start his shift.

His co-workers from the night shift are ready for him: one hands him the tablet that holds all the patient’s charts, another asks him how bad the snow is outside and a third gives him a verbal update on the new patients that came in during the night.   
“Heart attack in 203, resuscitated once, stable. Ruptured spleen in 207, fresh out of surgery,” she lists efficiently, putting her tablet on the charger in its designated dock. “Oh, and one of the Boys in Blue is in 209. Punctured lung and various other cuts. Got stabbed by a junkie, is the word.”

Nines nods, taking in her words as he scrolls quickly through the list of patients on their ward. Only three new patients is not bad for the start of the weekend, though he knows more will come in before the end of his shift.   
Most of the people from his shift yesterday are still here, as are some others that have been there since earlier this week. They will move out soon, as is the case with most people that end up in this part of the hospital. And that’s a good thing: you don’t want to spend too much time in the Trauma ward.

The patient with the heart attack in 203 is a friendly, elderly woman with stark white hair. Her face is almost as white as her hair, but her eyes twinkle as she looks up at him. “Good morning, dear. Is the day starting already?”

“It is, ma’am.” He puts the tablet on the foot of her bed and moves to take her blood pressure. “Did you sleep well?”  
She lets him handle her arm into the inflatable band, answering his questions about her health with ease and clarity. Her vitals are not overly optimistic, though nobody would be tip top after being resuscitated barely eight hours before. The fact that she is lucid and in for some small talk tells him she will probably be out of his hands again soon.  
“Take care, Mrs. O’Sullivan. I’ll be by to check up on you around noon.”

“I’ll be right here, dear.” She smiles sweetly at him from her bed, her hands folded on top of the blankets. 

The patient is 205 is not awake when he comes in. The man wakes up from the sound of his voice, though he drifts in and out of consciousness during his check up. Nines doesn’t blame him; the injuries of his car accident are severe and on top of that he has to deal with the loss of his wife.   
The 40-year old man with the ruptured spleen is next. He moved to this room from recovery right before the start of Nines’ shift and he’s still feeling the effects of his sedatives. Nines makes a note to check up on the man in an hour; he’d like to see him more responsive. 

His next patient is most certainly responsive, if anything. The man - a police officer, his co-worker told him - is squirming in his bed. He has the head of the bed up and he is struggling with the pillows behind his back.   
“Need a hand, sir?” Nines greets cheerfully, keeping one eye on the chart to read up on his patient. With his injuries the man is fine sitting up, but sitting still is really all he should do. 

The man mutters expletives underneath his breath, not looking up from his battle with the pillows. Nines is not surprised when he hears groans of pain and more bad words. 

“Let me get that for you, Mr. Reed.” 

“I don’t need no fucking help!” The man actually swats at his hand when he reaches for the pillow. 

Someone here is not a morning person and it’s not Nines.  
“Sir -”

“ _ Detective _ ,” the man bites out, yanking at the pillow.

Nines holds back a sigh, wishing the man could be more like Mrs. O’Sullivan. Or more like his neighbour in the next room: unconscious.   
“Detective,” he amends, “you really should be more careful. You might pull your stitches if you keep twisting your torso like that.”

“I’ll twist your neck if you don’t quit hovering!”

“Sir, I suggest you mind your tone of voice,” Nines answers icily. He crosses his arms in front of his chest, pulling himself up to his full height. With his 6 foot 3 he is taller than most men and he has the imposing build to match. 

“Detective,” the patient corrects him again in a gruff voice, finally sitting down and pushing his back against the pillows. “And I suggest you get me another pillow, because these two sacks of flour are uncomfortable as fuck.”

He should have known a police officer - detective, he corrects himself unwillingly - would not be intimidated that quickly. Nines silently counts to ten, remembering that his patient is only acting out because he is in a lot of pain, had a rough night and probably didn’t get a lot of sleep.

“If you run into some coffee on your way to the pillow factory, I wouldn’t mind a cup of that too. Black, two sugars.”

Nines adds the need for a shot of caffeine to the list of reasons why he is getting verbally abused by his patient.   
“My colleague will be over with breakfast in a short while, detective. I’m sure she can get you some coffee,” Nines answers as civilly as he can muster. “Right now, I am here for your morning check up.” 

“At the ass crack of dawn,” the detective mutters, glaring up at him with his arms crossed in front of his chest. His frown seems to be etched on his face, the small scar on his nose just an extra line to his glare. He rubs at the stubble on his chin, no doubt thinking about his need for a shave. The man is on bed rest though, he still has a catheter from the surgery and he is not well enough yet to get into the shower. So a shave will have to wait. It’s a surprise the man is as feisty as he is right now; his stabwounds should be giving him a lot of pain. 

Getting the detective to put his arm out to measure his blood pressure is a struggle, the rest of the check up is even more of a hassle. The man is really testing his patience.   
“I need to get your temperature, sir,” Nines says, turning to the cabinet that holds the necessary supplies.

“Hell no,” is the - already expected - answer. “I am not baring my a- … Oh.” Detective Reed closes his mouth abruptly, eyeing the ear thermometer Nines is holding in his hand.

The nurse works quickly, wanting to get this check up over with as soon as possible. “Now, before I go, I’d like to take a quick look at your bandages.” 

Nines has his hand already stretched out to the hem of the patient’s hospital gown, but the detective pulls his blanket up and glares at him fiercely. “Fight me,” he snaps.

The man was bandaged somewhere during the night, after his surgery. There’s a pretty great chance his dressings are still fine, even though he might have ruptured some of his fresh stitches during his fight with the pillows. It goes against his norms, yet Nines decides he can skip this part of the check up for now. He can always come back after breakfast, after the man has had his coffee. Or send his colleague to do it, perhaps the detective will react better to a woman. He wouldn’t be the first male patient to be uncomfortable around a nurse of the same sex. 

It is not really Nines’ intention to pawn the detective off to his colleague, a zealous student nurse, but he gets a little occupied when his patient in 207 continues to stay unresponsive. It’s all good and well to sleep your anestesia off, yet he should be well awake by now. 

Things get a little messy before they get better and Nines has a bed to change. When he’s in the linen room he remembers the detective requesting another pillow. Might as well bring him one now he’s grabbing linens anyway.

It’s quiet in room 209. The lights are off and the curtains in front of the window closed. Not that there is much light to come in from outside anyway; the snowing has stopped, although the clouds are still threatening to spill frozen water any minute. Nines has worked enough night shifts to know his way around a dark room. Alongside the soft beeps of the monitor there’s the even sound of breathing, telling Nines the patient is asleep. The breathing is a bit shallow, due to the right lung that got nicked by a knife. 

He could leave the pillow on the foot end of the bed and head out again, but Nines wants to use this opportunity to check up on the detective without him biting his head off. He walks up to the bed, taking notice of the two cups on the bedside table. One is clean empty, the other still has the dredges of what Nines guesses to be the detective’s favourite hot beverage. Cops run on coffee and donuts, don’t they?

What he sees when he takes a closer look at the person in the bed, makes him pause. Somebody got the detective an extra pillow already. The head end of the bed is still slightly raised, with one pillow underneath the patient’s head, the other supporting his shoulders and back somewhat and the third… Well, the third is cradled in the detective’s arms. 

The patient is facing him, his face snuggled against the top of the pillow he’s cuddling. The frown has eased away and in the dim light that comes in from the hall Nines finds his patient suddenly very pleasant to look at. Of course, the man looks like he belongs in the hospital, with dark rings underneath his eyes and a gray undertone to his skin. Still, Nines could see the potential there. If he would have met detective Reed in a bar, he probably would’ve bought the man a drink. Or, perhaps the man was more the type to  _ buy _ the drinks; he had shown enough of the alpha male vibe already. Not much left of that now, Nines would go as far as to call him cute, all snuggled up with his extra pillow, his tousled hair falling into his eyes. 

He shouldn’t, he  _ really shouldn’t,  _ but Nines does it anyway. He clutches the new pillow to his chest with one arm and gently, very gently, eases one finger underneath the tufts of hair that fall over the detective’s forehead. The skin he meets is warm, a little too warm to his liking. One finger becomes four, his hand easing flush against the warm skin.

The detective moves under his touch, face scrunching up adorably. And then Nines suddenly locks eyes with his patient, frozen in his movement. It can only be seconds, but it feels like minutes. Reed shifts his gaze towards the pillow Nines is still holding up. A bit embarrassed at getting caught in touching his patient - although he can explain himself easily - Nines jerks his hand back from the detective’s face and grips the pillow with both hands. 

“What are you doing?” The question is mumbled, hardly intelligible. What comes next is clear as day. “You wanna fight me?!”

What is it with this man and fighting? Incredulous, Nines stares down at his patient. 

“Fight me!” the detective repeats, slapping his pillow weakly against the pillow Nines is holding. It’s not a serious attempt at starting a pillow fight, or perhaps it is and the detective just lacks the strength to hit any harder.

The warmth filling his chest from the inside out shines through in his smile, as Nines fondly looks down at his patient. “You should get some more sleep, detective. You can use it.”

As if the word ‘sleep’ is a magic word, the detective settles down against his pillows again and closes his eyes. Nines can’t make himself step away immediately, and that’s a good thing, because a moment later there’s a grabby motion towards the pillow he’s still holding. Eyes still closed, the detective mumbles something that sounds like: “Gimme.”

Working at the Trauma ward, Nines is not exactly in the habit of tucking his patients in. At least not in a nest made of four pillows and an extra blanket. It’s a new experience.

Before the end of his shift he drops by room 209 again. He checked the room before too, only to find the detective still fast asleep. Now, the cop is awake, accompanied by another police officer. She smiles at him when he comes into the room, moving her chair out of the way so he can reach the detective’s bedside more easily. 

“I’ll be quick, ma’am,” he says to her, followed by her telling him to take his time.   
“Sleep well, detective Reed?” he asks, already reaching out for the ear thermometer in the cabinet behind him. 

His patient grunts an affirmative, looking comfortable in his pillow fort. He’s no longer cuddling a pillow, they’re all behind his back this time. Nines wonders if he has let the female officer help him, or if he’s done it all by himself again. 

The ear thermometer beeps softly, displaying a healthy temperature. “Your fever from before has come down again,” Nines explains satisfied. “Those hours of sleep helped the healing process.”

The detective watches him put the thermometer away. “I liked your other method better,” he says suddenly and when Nines whips his head around to see if his patient is truly saying what he thinks he is saying, the small smirk on Reed’s face gives him his answer. 

“Of course you’d like a thermometer up your butt better, Gavin,” the female cop jokes, grinning broadly. 

“Shut the fuck up, Tina,” Detective Reed - Gavin, shoots back at her. She sticks her tongue out at him and he scrunches up his nose, giving her an annoyed glare. Their dynamic is natural, they must know each other for a long time. 

Nines busies himself with noting down his patient’s data on the tablet, fully aware of Gavin’s eyes on him. He had told himself that the detective was probably too sleepy to remember anything from their somewhat intimate encounter earlier that day, yet it seems like even sleep drunk the detective still has a sharp mind. However, he is still a patient and Nines pushes down the giddy feeling that tickles the underside of his stomach. There’s heavy eye contact during his check up of the bandages - something Gavin easily allows this time, yet that is all there is. 

He is a professional, and the patient in 209 gets just as much attention from him as his other patients. He has called patients by their first name before and he has also talked to hem about their pets (he has none, Gavin has two cats) and their work (both work odd and long hours). If Nines is a little more open in their conversations than usual, nobody calls him out on it.

Gavin hasn’t challenged him to a fight during the remainder of his four day stay on the Trauma ward anymore. He could have been transferred to another ward after day two, yet there was a shortage of beds and it was easier to just keep him in room 209. Nines didn’t even have a hand in that.

Today is Nines’ last day shift, before he has two days off and then changes to the night shift, three in a row. There has been a rush of new patients during the night, so someone else will handle Gavin’s discharge. 

He does have time to drop in right before the detective leaves the hospital. His bag is packed, sitting on the foot end of the bed. The four pillows are stacked on top of each other on the other end. Gavin sits in between, his feet dangling a little above the floor. 

“Tina is grabbing me a wheelchair,” he says when he sees Nines. He makes a face about it. “Stupid hospital policy.” 

“We like to keep our patients safe.” The eye contact feels heavier now the end is near. Nevertheless, Nines doesn’t find it uncomfortable. He has found Gavin’s gaze to be scrutinizing, but in a subtle way. Like the detective is trying to figure him out, to get to know him just by looking at him.  
His pager beeps at his hip, reminding him of the long list of patients that is waiting for him. “Got you something for the road,” he says, holding up the styrofoam cup of coffee in his right hand. “Black, two sugars, right?”

“That’s right,” Gavin says, taking the coffee from him. He turns the cup in his hands, his eyes catching on the black handwriting on the paper sleeve. 

Nines wrote his phone number there, along with two words: ‘Fight me’.

“See you around, detective.”

“Oh, you will, Nines.”

  
<3


End file.
